Trump is claiming that the 4.1% growth in the USA’s GDP for the most recent quarter (3 months) is at the highest level in decades. To be honest, I don’t remember his exact words but he is contending that this 4.1% increase is the largest in a long time … He talks in terms of dollars and cents, winning and losing, but countries are not businesses and should not be administered as such… It’s Trump’s tariff time. It’s just a waste of time… when we buy a good or service from the United States, this is a Canadian import because money is exiting Canada to purchase that import. Alternately, when Americans buy goods and/or services from Canada, the cost of these goods go into the Canadian export column because money is coming into our country … Other countries have reacted to the American imposition of tariffs with tariffs of their own on American exports to their country, like on soybeans which will hurt American farmers just like Harley Davidson …

Just thinking about England while watching a football game on television between Brighton and Hove Albion and Huddersfield, being played in Falmer, Sussex.Below : American Express Community Stadium in Farmer, Sussex, home pitch of BHA. That new and beautiful pitch is located in Falmer, equidistant between Brighton on the east and Lewes, very close to Sussex University, where I earned my Masters in International Relations between 1969 and 1972, way back when, around 45 years ago, now.

I used to live in Brighton, first, and then in Hove, a part of my life I enjoy thinking about as my salad days. We had a gas, my girlfriend, Donna and my friend, Lorne, as well as other characters we encountered on our journeys.Below: Brighton, Sussex, England.
One of the latter was a classic, “Paul” to the straight world, “Sebastian” to his buds and all the Hippies around in those days. He was homeless, relying on his friends, of which there were more of than a few, to provide shelter to this cashless guy, with his copy of the album “Mirror Man “ by Captain Beefheart** under his arm, and his Alsatian (German Shepherd) by his side. Like him, dog carried a dual aperture. She was “Hash” to the freaks and “Tessa” to those with, shall we say, more conventional views, including cops.Below : Captain Beefheart – Don Glen Vliet – and album cover. Paul was hardly ever without this album under his arm.

Cops couldn’t simply approach Sebastian to search him. They tried once and Hash bit that guy, breaking his arm. To call her off, Mr. Sebastian simply said “Hash”, firmly, from some place deep inside this remarkable gentle man whom I grew to love. When the dog was with Paul, all the time in other words, they had to lay back and he was safe. Never got busted as far as I know.

Actually, one of the highlights of my 1982 visit to England was locating this guy and hanging out. The last time I was in Brighton, in the “summer” of 2013, I wasn’t that lucky. Couldn’t find Sebastian even though I went to check out our old haunts, pubs, mostly, as well as putting an ad in the local “Evening Argus” newspaper. Too fucking bad. Hope he’s still living. Some of my British friends have since died, most from from lung cancer and I am convinced it’s from all that tobacco we used to smoke – chain smoking straights except for me who didn’t smoke straights while stoned – I recall one time, somewhere in the world, when not stoned, I lit up a straight and the person I was with mentioned that he didn’t know that I even smoked cigarettes which I happened to not do when buzzed, for some reason..

That and the fact that we constructed spliffs rather than simple joints, the former containing the tobacco from a single cigarette plus hash of course.

We used to use three skins – cigarette papers, Rizzla, I think, and stick two together on one side with a third skin perpendicular affixed to the other two. Then we used open up an entire smoke by licking the seam, breaking the filter, and pulling it down, along the wet seam, and emptying an entire straight into it. Then the hash and roll, add a filter of at least 1/4 inch wide and voila, an English spliff. Some of us used to put the filter in prior to rolling it up.

We used to suck this concoction rather than puff on it if we really wanted a strong stone, similar to how chillums. Imagine what that did to the lungs.

Now back to my story :
One time, Paul was crashing at our place, in Hove – we could actually see the English Channel/La Manche – from our living room window as well as from the window of the room which Sebastian was occupying that morning.

So I enter the room, take two steps in the dark, and immediately hear a low-throated growl emanating from Hash, the dog. Fortunately, that’s all it was, rather than something more painful than the fear I felt for the few seconds it took for me to escape from that room and quickly closing it the in my wake. I believe that that huge Alsatian had scented me out, and recognized me as a friend to Master Sebastian. Otherwise my unannounced foray into that dark room would have resulted in something worse than that growl, which I imagine I can still conjure up, exactly, after all these years.

I remember Sebastian, Hash and I going up to London

in a small car with little money and less gas. This is how it was on this trip of around 50 miles/80 km. We’d get to the beginning of a downhill slope or hill, turn off the ignition, and glide down the hill. Upon reaching the “end of the road”, as it were, we would then turn on the engine and use it to get us to the next downhill portion of the motorway. So it was use the engine, turn it off, turn it on and repeat.

One more interesting tidbit is that I purchased a car while over the ocean. It was a 1958 Austin A-35 and you actually had to crank it from outside the front of the car to get it started. That wasn’t the same car as the above-mentioned vehicle Sebastian, Hash, and I used on that incredible “ride” to London.

Below: Stock photo of the A-35. Look very closely and you can see the hole in the bumper, right in the middle, where the crank is attached.
I paid a measly seven quid for it, less than $20 at the time so I wasn’t risking much cash. Don’t remember getting insurance for it. It was fun to use and ran fairly adequately in the few months I owned it. Only problem was the fact that I had to drive on the left side of the road, to which I wasn’t at all used. At times, turning left found me on the wrong side of the median, but I used to drive completely focussed so that I handled those turns a very high percentage of the time. It was black, by the way.

Sebastian was a generous man, who gave what and when he could to his freaky friends who had helped him out. One morning, upon waking up and heading down the 69 stairs to the street – beautiful flat which exhausted the less in shape among us at the time, at least the sixty-nine steps did – and opening the front door, and low and behold, raw fish wrapped in newspaper, a few pounds if it was an ounce. From Paul, – fell off a truck – cod, I believe it was.

That’s pretty much all I’ve got to say,
Today, Christians attend Church and pray,
So have good days tomorrow and today
May all your cares and worries go away
Just like the Habs’ chances for a playoff foray.

Ok, Ken?

**Legend has it that the Captain, a Frank Zappa-like character. or maybe it’s the other way round – went to live a solitary life in a California desert until he forgot how to speak English. Provided that he relearned it on his return to civilization, I find that very cool.

Below: “That guy…”
Just had a horrible experience with this man. He’s the brother of one of the owners – she and her hubby – and he drove me to the Harley dealership in North Charleston to collect some clothes to take home when I head back to good old Montréal. We also went to a buffet to pick up some Chinese for us although that wasn’t intended at the time. At first I thought I wouldn’t mind spending time with this guy who I’ve know for six years eating at the restaurant but decided, because I knew that, right here, right now, I didn’t want to spend any longer than necessary with the guy, I decided to ask him if it was ok if we put the food in boxes – including food for my hosts – after hmming and hawing and generally being obnoxious, he asked me why I didn’t want to eat at the restaurant and I surprised myself by giving him an honest answer in this context rather than simply making something up – that he was acting obnoxiously and I felt that I wanted to spend as short a time as possible with him at that moment.

Suffice to say, after collecting and paying for the food, things got a lot worse on the 30 or so minute ride from China Buffet to the house where I’m staying. In the end, I was almost physically sick; this was my first conflict since hitting the road in late January. Good and bad. Anyway, on getting back, I simply begged off and have been recovering on my bed. Unfortunately, I’m hungry – all I’ve eaten today and it’s now just after five in the afternoon, is one-half of a left-over Big Mac which means I’m gonna have to head downstairs and interact with this obnoxious man once more; hopefully it’ll be alright. If he starts acting up again I’ll either head back upstairs or clock him. Actually in the car on the way home, I told him that if I was feeling better and it wasn’t raining that I would get out of the car and cab it home. His response: If you were healthier, I’d “beat the crap out of you”. Very nice. What an asshole this guy can be. I apologized for calling him obnoxious, and he, obnoxiously, didn’t accept my apology and when I mentioned that to him, he said that I was “putting words into my (his) mouth”.

What’s on my mind is Greg, a born and bred Virginian, whom I met this aft in Charleston, SC. He’s a Trump supporter to the end and won’t desert him, no matter what … The guy stated that he hates niggers – his word – and when I asked him if he classified himself as a racist, he answered in the affirmative, keeping his voice down because Bonita, a black friend of mine, was close enough to hear … What does Trump want? I am firmly convinced that he could, he would subvert the entire system of government and become a dictator …

So Tiger’s in contention at the Arnold Palmer Invitational PGA Tourney at Bayhill, in Orlando … Like many who follow the game, I find myself pulling for Woods to the extent that I lose interest when the camera follows other golfers … Even the crowds out on the course on Saturday were totally immersed in Woods’ progress back to prominence after a fourth back surgery and his cheating ways. He is a divorced father of two kids, Charlie and Sam, who are apparently old enough now to understand what their father has done and can, apparently, still do … There was a time that I was angry at Mr. Woods for depriving me and millions of others of the chance to see golf history unfolding in front of our incredulous eyes because he cheated on his wife …

Nice home. Front and back views of a Bialik alumnus’ classy place shared with his wife and two kids. There are alligators in the man-made lake in the back of the property. Otherwise, it’s swimmable. So if you ain’t afraid of gators, dive right in … I’ve been on the road for over five weeks at the moment, first landing in Charleston and picking up my trike … Willie, who in his own words when we last saw each other, is 83 1/2, still rides … My plan is the following. I will leave Miami tomorrow morning, planning to spend the next two days in Punta Gorda, just north of Port Charlotte …

Let’s have a parade for fuck sake. Why not call it treason. Why not. But he’s only joking says the WH ….
White House staff secretary Rob Porter, a top aide to President Donald Trump, has resigned, the White House confirmed Wednesday, following allegations of abuse from his two ex-wives …
“Rob Porter is a man of true integrity and honor and I can’t say enough good things about him. He is a friend, a confidante and a trusted professional. I am proud to serve alongside him,” Kelly said in a statement.

The Dow dropped a total of 1175.21 points today in heavy trading. This is the biggest single day drop IN HISTORY. Trump was trumpeting the fact that the market was setting all kinds of records and took plenty of credit for this when it had little to do with his actions, or with those of any other human. The economy has a mind of its own.

The Business Cycle

The Business Cycle goes through periods of expansion/inflation, recession, troughs and peaks. The Federal Reserve regulates open market operations by which government bonds are bought or sold in order to respectively increase or decrease the money supply. In other words, when the Federal Reserve decides to buy bonds from individual consumers, businesses and corporate entities, it is attempting to put money in people’s’ pockets to help combat a real or anticipated recession.

Alternately, during periods of inflation, in order to curb the money supply, the Reserve, the equivalent of our Bank of Canada, will sell bonds, thus taking money out of peoples’ pockets. In this situation, people exchange money for government bonds.

The Reserve and the BOC (Bank of Canada) also use interest rates to control the money supply. During periods of expansion during the Business Cycle, the Bank Rate will be raised while during periods of economic contraction, the Bank Rate (BR) will be lowered, making it more attractive to borrow and spend money, thus assisting in economic expansion.

A third way the Reserve and the BOC operate to control the money supply is through a policy of moral suasion.

The government itself, through its spending and taxation policies also operates as an economic regulator. Increased taxation coupled with decreased government spending would be the methodology used to combat inflation and decreased taxation coupled with increased spending would be introduced to fight recession.

Even with all this, the ups and downs of the Business Cycle march on. All the government and the Reserve/ BOC can accomplish is to attempt to ensure that the ups and downs are less severe than they would be in the absence of government intervention in the economy.

Trump is an idiot to take credit for a good economy or, by the same token, to take the blame for what has happened to the Stock Market in the last three or four sessions. But the moron obviously doesn’t see it that way which means he can be blamed for the LARGEST POINT DROP for the Dow in HISTORY, if he has taken credit for the Market’s positive performance since the 2016 presidential election, which he definitely has.

Just to repeat, the economy moves in cycles. Intervention can be used to even out the ups and downs. However, they cannot be eliminated. Eat shit, Moron-In-Chief.

Inflation is an economic situation where too much money is chasing too few goods which drives prices up due to the laws of supply and demand. In this case, demand for goods bids up prices causing increased inflation, rising prices with the result that the purchasing power of the money falls.

Recession results from an antithetical scenario, in which there is not enough money around which causes prices to either rise less quickly, stabilize or fall. Less demand results in increased rates of unemployment, so characteristic of recessionary periods in the Business Cycle.

It is a Harley trike, 2011. I bought it second hand in the summer of 2014 but didn’t take possession until later in September as it took about 10 weeks for the modifications to be done. In fact, this is the beginning of the fourth year of my ride in this life. When I got the bike which had had one owner prior to my buying it, it had around 24,000 km. (15,000 miles) on it. Now the odometer is approaching 73,000 km., the equivalent of 45,625 miles. I am averaging about 16,000 km. a year, which is 10,000 miles.

I don’t know whether that’s a lot of mileage annually averaged, or not, given the fact that in 2015 and this year, 2018, I have ridden and plan on riding essentially all year round. In 2015, I shipped my bike down from Montreal to Charleston, SC, in mid-January. I then drove down in my Cadillac ATS, stored the car, and took off on my bike.

That time I ended up in Tampa where I stayed for about three weeks, hanging out, riding, discovering the area, meeting people, seeing the Lightning hockey games, some against the Canadiens. How well I remember the Habs being taken out in the playoffs by the talented Tampa Bay squad in six games. I remember one goal in particular in one of the two games that the Canadiens won – one win at home and one win which I was at in Tampa – scored by Max Pacioretty. A beautiful shot.

I also took in some Grapefruit League baseball, spring training time. I went to Lakeland and saw the Tigers and to George Steinbrenner Field either in or very close to Tampa, can’t recall, to see a game the Yankees were playing. I also drove to Dunedin, to see a Jays pre-season game but got so fed up trying to find a place to park my bike that I turned around and went straight back home, to Tampa that is, not to Munt-real, where it’s really too cold to drive a bike in winter.

I also went to Tropicana Field,

in St. Petersburg, across a 14 mile bridge from Tampa, to see a Tampa Rays Grapefruit League game . I had a handicapped parking vignette on my motorcycle but it had expired about a month prior to my going to that game. Fuckers gave me a ticket, $250 USD, which I unhappily paid with a note on the cheque thanking the municipality, or whatever it is, of St. Petersburg for its hospitable nature. In all honesty, I could have and should have taken care of the expired sticker but still.

Speaking of cold, one morning, while at a crumby Day’s Inn in Lake City, FL., I awoke one morning at around 4:30 and discovered frost on my bike which made me nervous because I never had left my bike out and uncovered in cold weather before, and I wasn’t sure that the engine would turn over. So outside I go to start it up.

Long story short, if started alright, first time, but due to carelessness on my part, the bike just took off, with me watching, prone on my on the ground where the bike had tossed me as it took off, as it made a right turn and headed for a little grassy knoll, missing all kinds of parked cars in the lot as well as not hitting anything except two picnic tables – one turned into kindling, the other into lumber – and taking out part of a cord fence – not the one pictured here – in the process.

The motorcycle stalled out, thank God, and came to rest on the knoll. I got it out of there, and then went to inform the boss what had happened. He said that he’d have a look and get back to me.

“Really messed up”, or words to that effect came out of his mouth a little n
while later in the aftermath of his having surveyed the scene. He asked for damages in the amount of $175 USD, the equivalent of around $1000 CAN. 😆 which I happily paid.

View from, and of, the Country Inn (& Suites, may I add), Jacksonville, FL. Another nice run today, from Savannah, GA., to north Florida, a 180 km. (approx. 115 miles), a few stops along the way. Took close to three hours, actually. A light, light shower or two did nothing to dampen my spirits. Heading south is encouraging but I still wore my usual garb, seven layers, masked, helmeted, mitts included. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to find mitts. My clawed hands make gloves an impossibility and ski mitts are way too thick. I am so careful not to lose my mitts. They’re gold in that they make travel which would without them be impossible, possible.

Just hanging out and relaxing at the hotel, taking it easy, thinking about stuff like freedom which is very important to me. I am completely and totally free, responsible only to myself; the downside is no partner, no kids, grandchildren, sisters, brothers. I will definitely die surrounded by my good and excellent friends but without family. Sometimes I wish I had kids but I opt to think that having taught for 34 years, that, in the words of good pal, Peter Marmorek, I gave at the office.
The up side is the liberty that I experience has allowed me to branch out and to live my life exactly the way I choose. As Johnny Jellybean used to opine, “you never know what lonesome is, till you get to herding cows”.

As Hunter S. Thomson used to write: “Nigger” and that didn’t make him a racist anymore than it makes me one for thinking “nigger” at times when a black man or woman appears in my line of sight. I don’t know why I think like that but according to some niggers that I know and really love, that doesn’t make me a racist. I know what’s in my heart and it is love for Albert, Joan, Phil, Willie, and even the grandson, Cameron, who pissed me off, not to forget about Hilton, (RIP) who got this whole beautiful trip, started. Joan was Hilton’s sister, Albert is her husband, Cameron is their grandson, and Phil is Joan’s brother.
Willie, featured above on his bike, referred to himself as an “old nigger” with only me driving around with him in his Mercedes. He also said that if he was involved in a traffic stop, he would ensure that he kept both hands on the wheel, to avoid getting shot, I suppose. Not to forget my good friends Bonita, Annell, Angela, and Charlene, courtesy of the Comfort Suites, Charleston. Annell and I are pictured here with my bike.
Get over yourselves.
That’s enough truth for today.

View from a hotel window, Savannah, GA, USA.
4th in a series which includes views from hotel windows in Lutherville, MD, Boston, MA, and NYC. Cool run today. 2 1/2 hours, approximately 120 miles from Charleston to Savannah. Thanks for your help Kathleen Cawthorn. I truly appreciate your effort on my behalf. Taking care of business.
Tomorrow I plan to hit Jacksonville, Florida home of the NFL Jaguars. Go Eagles. Fly. Score. Win.
Brady’s the reason I am hoping for a Philly win. For the same reason that many Canadians outside Quebec disliked the National Hockey League Montreal Canadiens during the forties, fifties, sixties and seventies, I don’t like the Patriots because they seemingly never lose.
Ah. The Good Old Days.
Henri Richard, Maurice the Rocket, Dickie Moore, Jacques Plante, Jacques Laperriere, Larry Robinson, Steve Shutt, Guy Lafleur, Jimmy Roberts, Serge Savard, Ken Dryden, Jean Beliveau, Claude Provost, Jean-Guy Talbot, Mike Kean, Saint Patrick, Guy Carbonneau, Doug Harvey, Tom Johnson, Gump Worsley, Vinny Damphousse, Frank and Peter Mahovlich, the list goes on. Who the hell do we have today? Not many. That’s for sure.

Listening to that puke claiming that he has had more “legislative” successes than any government in US history, save Truman’s. That least popular first term president in history just doesn’t get it. There is a difference between legislative achievements, of which this Tax bill is the only one, and the executive branch of government from which all those Executive Orders have emanated. There were actually two other pieces of legislation passed by Congress during this first year, the Gorsuch appointment to the Supreme Court as well as the Russia Sanctions Bill which he signed under duress. Speaking of fake news, listening to that idiot, it was being manufactured right in front of us.
Instead of being a unifying force, he has succeeded in dividing Americans and making many of them uncomfortable, nervous and ill at ease.
This is one very insecure person, with serious psychological issues such as “Why don’t people like me?” Gimme a freaking break.
Read Timothy Snyder’s short and readable book : “On Tyranny. Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century.” It is important that one doesn’t become apathetic and to stay engaged.
Trump has lost the respect of the vast majority of Americans.
Instead of being a unifying force, he has succeeded in dividing Americans and making many of them uncomfortable, nervous and ill at ease.
This is one very insecure person, with serious psychological issues such as “Why don’t people like me?” Gimme a freaking break.
Read Timothy Snyder’s short and readable book : “On Tyranny. Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century.” It is important that one doesn’t become apathetic and to stay engaged.
Trump has lost the respect of the vast majority of Americans.

Music today features Jimi Hendrix’s “Are you experience Different?” Well, are you?

This shot is from Tampa, “winter” 2015.

Annell and I in front of the Comfort Inn and Suites, Charleston, SC, Oct. 30/17
Arrived about an hour ago, pretty cool out there right now, 16 degrees C. with a significant wind which makes biking extremely tiring but I did make it. It took me nine days to do the 1200 miles (around 2000 km.) as I can handle only a 300 – 350 km. ride each day, about 200 miles. Today was really weird. It took me five hours due to the fact that I stopped more than usually, to add layers of clothing*; did about 300 km (approx. 200 miles) a day and I had to lay over twice I think it was, due to inclement weather.
*My seven layers – short-sleeve T, two long-sleeved tops, two sweaters, my leather jacket and a terrific windbreaker which made a huge difference. Actually.

Charleston

Riding my trike … I am really enjoying the bike. Man, I’m telling you. The only real problem is weather. There is the odd issue with the trike, but thank the good Lord that thry’ve only been minor so far. Before leaving Montreal on Saturday, October 21st, I had been having trouble with GPS which kept falling off the wind screen due to the vibrations of 103 cu in (1690 cc.), 1100 lb. beast. That problem was regulated as can be seen below:

I was very lucky weather-wise. It rained twice only during the nine days, once while I was traveling, light rain, short duration and last night. The seven layers I wore kept out the cold but there is still the wind with which I had to contend on today’s ride from Fayetteville to Charleston. Go figure. You would think that the further south one travels it should get warmer unless of course higher elevations come into play further south which was not the case today. The Carolinas are flat, man, some land here is actually below sea level which partly accounts for severe flooding which threatens this part of Ameri-ka.
I actually had to stop twice just to add clothing, my mitts (can’t wear gloves since Scleroderma has done a number on my hands), and an extra sweater.

I have reached far enough south that helmets are not compulsory. I have ridden without a helmet on my last bike trip to the southern states in winter/spring 2015, but only in the cities and towns in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

This is from Lake City, FL on a previous trip. I thought that I would see some Detroit Tiger spring training games in 2015 but the Tigers’ spring training site turns out to be in Lakeland, not Lake City.

[I remember actually making shrieking “Yahoo” or some facsimile thereof, when I crossed the massive, huge and large Mississippi River delta back then.]

On the highways, parkways, freeways, turnpikes, inter-states, expressways and throughways I always wore a helmet. My friend Albert’s neighbour in Summerville, NC, told me when I was staying with Albert and his lively wife, Joan, in 2015, that if you’re driving a motorcycle at a speed of 35 mph or more, it wouldn’t matter if you were wearing a helmet or not, you would be a vegetable or dead. Sounds like an old wives’ tale to me.

This pic is from 2016, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Albert on the left and Willie, the latter over 82 by now, and still riding.

Joan

Willie and I after a ride. What a cool guy. A retired teacher.
He toLd me that he had me in his heart. Likewise, I’m sure, Willie, man. One of the coolest people I have ever met. You’re gonna have to trust my judgement on that.

The taxi driver, Bunmi, drove me home from B & E Stadium in Baltimore, MD, where I had gone to see the Ravens crush the hapless fish 40 to a big fat nothing. He’s an amazing guy as was Mohammad who drove me to the stadium. I asked Bunmi if he wanted to have a look at my trike when we got to the hotel where I was staying in Lutherville, about ten miles north of Baltimore. Trump country, by the way.

So we go round back and when we’re done looking at my motorcycle, I ask him if I should remove my GPS so that it didn’t get ripped off, something I have never done. He goes :
“Take it with you, man. Where do you think you are? Canada?”

Lutherville

I meet many people who want to know about my bike. They also ask me if I drove all the way from Quebec – I have Quebec plates on my bike, “Je me souviens”. The older men, my age and a little older, seem particularly interested, their spouses, not so much. “For ged aboud it”.

The cops came to see me when I was living in Brighton, England, way back in 1971 when I was only 23 years old … I don’t remember why the cops stopped us but they did, in the middle of the night, and they became suspicious when we told them we were headed for Brighton. Turns out we were traveling in the wrong direction. When we were stopped, we only had tastes of some hash … In the end, my friend didn’t score. All I could get then was grass which cost more in England then than it did in Montreal. My friend managed to score a 1/2 kilo in Amsterdam and got busted with it.